Delta's origins can be traced to a decision by B. R. Coad and Collett E. Woolman. Coad was an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's field laboratory in Tallulah, Louisiana; Woolman was with its extension service. They worked on finding a solution to the boll weevil infestation of cotton crops and concluded that the "dusting" of an insecticide powder from the air would be the most effective form of treatment. Born from this decision was Huff Daland Dusters Incorporated, a crop-dusting operation founded on May 30, 1924, in Macon, Georgia, becoming the world's first aerial crop dusting company. The company moved to Monroe, Louisiana, in 1925. Woolman left his position with the extension service and in the off-season traveled with the company to Peru, where he helped to establish crop-dusting and passenger services. With this experience Woolman returned to the United States and in 1928 raised the capital to buy Huff Daland, executing the purchase on September 13, 1928, and renaming the company Delta Air Service, with headquarters in Monroe. The name Delta, referring to the Mississippi Delta, was suggested by Catherine Fitzgerald, a secretary who later would rise to the rank of an executive in the company.[1]